I was using Translate & Adapt on my old theme version, and I also manually edited and customized many of the translations. However, after I upgraded to the latest version of my theme, all of my manual translations disappeared.
Do I really need to manually re-do all the translations again from scratch?
Is there any way to keep or copy over the translations from the old theme version to the new one?
Basically, I would like to know if thereās a way to migrate/copy translations from the old theme version to the new version without losing my previous manual edits.
Iām not sure if the file changed since you pushed an update but can you go to https://admin.shopify.com/settings/languages and click Export, then check the file to see if the old translation is still intact?
Iām also not sure if this still works, but thereās a workaround to copy translations from the old theme version to the new version using the CSV file:
Thank you for your help. But the issue Iām running into is that when I click Export, I only see the option to export my additional language (Korean). I canāt find any way to export my default language (Japanese) as a CSV file.
Could you let me know how I can export my default Japanese language, so I donāt lose all my existing translations when upgrading the theme?
Can you try exporting āAll Languagesā? There will be ādefault contentā and ātranslated contentā as column titles in the CSV file. Check if theyāre available inside.
Another way worth checking is to click āEdit codeā from your old theme. Inside the code editor, go to ālocalesā and see if thereās any data there but this will be in raw form (json), so if you find it, youāll still have to copy and paste it manually
Thanks for the suggestion! I tried exporting āAll Languagesā as you mentioned, but the CSV only lets me export additional languages (like Korean). My default language (Japanese) cannot be exported, so none of my manually translated entries from Translate & Adapt are included in the CSV.
I also checked the locales/ folder in the old themeās code editor, but again, the JSON files there donāt contain the manual translations I added via Translate & Adapt either. It seems those translations are stored separately in Shopifyās Translation API and tied to the old theme_id, which is why they disappear when switching to a new theme.
Do you know if thereās a way to export or migrate those Translate & Adapt manual translations (ONLINE_STORE_THEME entries) to the new theme, so I donāt need to re-do everything manually?
You can see in the attachment that the JSON file doesnāt include the manual translations I added in Translate & Adapt. Those entries donāt appear in the export either, since it only allows exporting additional languages, not my default Japanese.
Is there any way to export or migrate those manual translations to the new theme so I donāt have to re-do them all?
Oh dang, sorry Iām out of tricks I personally know but out of curiosity I asked GPT, and it suggested a method I didnāt know about. I havenāt had the chance to try all the steps myself, but it involves creating a custom app inside your store, exporting the translations to a .json file, and then applying them to the new theme.
Might be worth trying if youāre feeling adventurous?
This is just a sample from one of its codes:
# REQUIRED: set these three
STORE="yourstore.myshopify.com" # your store address
TOKEN="xxx" # Admin API token from ur newly created app
LOCALE="jp" # language you edited (jp or kr)
# Theme IDs
OLD="xxx" # pre-updated (old)
NEW="xxx" # post-updated (new)
curl -s -X POST "https://$STORE/admin/api/2025-07/graphql.json" \
-H "X-Shopify-Access-Token: $TOKEN" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
--data '{"query":"query($locale:String!,$first:Int!,$after:String){ translatableResources(first:$first, after:$after, resourceType:ONLINE_STORE_THEME){ pageInfo{hasNextPage endCursor} edges{ node{ resourceId translations(locale:$locale){ key value locale } } } }}","variables":{"locale":"'"$LOCALE"'","first":100,"after":null}}'
Before updating your Shopify theme, just go to Settings > Languages, hit Export, and save your translations as a CSV. After the update, go back to the same spot, hit Import, and upload that file. Boomāyour manual translations are back.
Thanks a lot for your suggestion! I actually tried creating a custom app and running the GraphQL queries to fetch my manual translations from Translate & Adapt. However, when I query my old theme ID, the response always shows ātranslationsā: , even though I definitely had a lot of manual Japanese translations there.
It seems those manual translations (for the default language) are not stored in the locale JSON files, nor retrievable via the GraphQL translatableResource query tied to the old theme.
Do you know if thereās any other workaround to export or migrate those Translate & Adapt manual translations (ONLINE_STORE_THEME entries) into the new theme? Or is the only option to ask Shopify support directly to generate a CSV for me?
Iām out of tricks I personally know but out of curiosity I asked GPT, and it suggested a method I didnāt know about. I havenāt had the chance to try all the steps myself, but it involves creating a custom app inside your store, exporting the translations to a 
It made me wonder where the language file is stored.